Google Earth Pro isn’t dead yet, but we should prepare

Google is ending new desktop downloads in 2027. For OSINT researchers, journalists and digital investigators, the bigger issue is reproducibility, privacy and the slow erosion of a trusted investigative workflow.

Google has a reputation for sending products to the graveyard. Google Earth Pro now has one foot in the grave.

The way to interpret it is: Google Earth Pro on desktop is not being switched off on 25 June 2027. It is being removed from official desktop distribution. Google’s own Earth versions page now warns that Google Earth Pro on desktop “will no longer be available for download” from that date, while still describing the desktop app as the free option for users with “advanced feature needs,” including GIS import/export and historical imagery.

Existing users may be able to keep using it. The Verge also reported that people can continue using the app after the download cutoff, while Google recommends the web version for the latest updates.

But for OSINT researchers, journalists, human rights investigators, analysts, educators and anyone who uses Google Earth Pro as a local geospatial workbench, this is still a major deprecation. It ends new installs. It weakens institutional deployment. It pushes a legacy desktop tool into the software afterlife. And it signals that Google Earth’s future is no longer a local desktop application, but a browser-based platform built around accounts, cloud projects, collaboration, paid tiers and AI-enabled geospatial features.

I never want to be someone resistant to change, and there are many promising features of a single maintainable system vs having a desktop and browser option to maintain in parallel. Rather than reading this as a rant-piece, consider it an assessment of the potential issues that may arise, and another voice asking Google to ensure they do the best they can to ensure such a change can continue enabling Google Earth users to better the world, expose injustices, and empower voices.

Why OSINT researchers should care first

Google Earth Pro is not just a map viewer. In the OSINT world, it has become part of the basic investigative toolkit. It has been a crucial element in many workflows with real-world impact, including evidence shown in courts.

Google Earth is a key tool for verifying images and videos, particularly in geolocation, where features visible in photos or footage are compared with satellite imagery to confirm where something was recorded.

In a 2022 Bellingcat survey of open source researchers, Google Earth Pro was described as the second most favourite tool and also the tool considered most helpful for open source investigations, with users pointing to its free access to current and historical satellite imagery.

Not every KML built for the desktop era will behave identically on the web

For many users, KML/KMZ files are not just convenience files. They are case files, teaching files, fieldwork files, geocaching files, route archives, sample-location databases and years of accumulated work.

Google Earth web supports KML and KMZ, but migration is not always simple. Google’s own import guide says KML/KMZ project-feature imports are suitable up to roughly 10,000 features, and it recommends splitting large “My Places” files into smaller thematic folders if they exceed those limits or contain several megabytes of data. Google’s KML import guidance also points users to a separate KML Import Guide for supported elements, which is a polite way of saying that not every KML built for the desktop era will behave identically on the web.

A simple placemark probably survives the migration. A complex investigation file with folders, icons, overlays, time spans, network links, embedded images, styling, tours, routes and imported data may not. Even when the coordinates survive, the meaning can degrade. Symbology breaks. Folder structures change. Network-linked data fails. Large datasets have to be split or converted. Local workflows become cloud workflows. “Open this KMZ and follow the layers” becomes “let’s see which parts import.”

For OSINT, that matters because KML/KMZ is often the glue between tools. It is how you move a set of candidate locations from one researcher to another. It is how you preserve a geolocation trail. It is how you mark false positives, confirmed locations, imagery dates, route hypotheses and areas still to check.

The bridge to GIS

For journalists, Google Earth Pro has long occupied a useful middle ground. It is more capable than a normal web map, but much easier to use than full GIS software.

That middle ground is important in newsrooms. Not every reporter is a GIS analyst. Not every investigation has time for a full QGIS project. Sometimes a reporter needs to quickly test whether a video could have been filmed from a claimed location. Sometimes an editor needs to inspect a route. Sometimes a graphics team needs a KML of confirmed sites. Sometimes a producer needs a clean flyover or a high-resolution image export. Google Earth Pro made those tasks accessible.

The danger now is that investigative teams will be pushed into a split world. Casual tasks will move to the Google Earth web. More technical tasks may move to QGIS, ArcGIS Earth, Caesium-based tools, Sentinel Hub EO Browser, NASA Worldview, Felt, GeoLibre, or other platforms. That is not necessarily bad. Some of those tools are more powerful, more open or better suited to specific tasks.

But fragmentation means more training, more conversion, more tool-specific caveats and more chances for evidence to be handled inconsistently.

For small newsrooms and freelancers, that matters. The old value of Google Earth Pro was that it was free, familiar, powerful enough and widely understood.

The web version is improving, but it is a different product model

It would be unfair to pretend Google Earth web is still the immature browser viewer it once was. Google has clearly been investing in it. The web version now includes historical imagery, historical Street View, project creation, measurement tools, data imports, local KML options and data layers. But the product model is different.

Google’s current Earth plans page lists a free Standard tier, plus Professional and Professional Advanced tiers priced at $75 and $150 per user per month, respectively. The paid tiers include higher data import limits, specialised data layers, more access to Ask Google Earth and support. The same plans page also notes that changes to a plan can affect access to data layers in projects, including shared projects.

For commercial users, that may be normal SaaS packaging. For OSINT researchers, journalists, educators and civil society groups, it introduces new dependencies.

What happens when a newsroom’s project uses a data layer tied to a billing plan? What happens when an NGO collaborator loses access? What happens when an archived investigation relies on a feature that later moves the plan, changes the interface or becomes unavailable?

For investigators, Google Earth Pro is not just a way to browse satellite imagery. It is a local geospatial workbench. You can import high-resolution commercial imagery, overlay drone footage or screenshots, adjust transparency, rotate and align images against roads or buildings, and build complex KML/KMZ case files with many layers, placemarks, paths, notes and source references. That matters when Google’s default imagery is outdated, blurred, cloudy or simply not detailed enough.

I have previously written about using Google Earth Pro to overlay drone footage onto the map as an OSINT technique, and the same logic applies to Planet, Maxar or other high-resolution imagery. The concern is not whether the web version can open a simple KML. It is whether it can preserve the messy, layered, local investigative workflows that researchers actually rely on.

The problem with “just use QGIS”

Whenever Google Earth Pro comes up, someone reasonably suggests QGIS. In many cases, that is good advice.

QGIS is powerful, open source and much more capable than Google Earth Pro for serious GIS work. It can handle projections, raster data, vector analysis, plugins, basemaps, georeferencing and complex datasets in ways Google Earth Pro was never designed to do.

But “just use QGIS” misses why Earth Pro became so common in OSINT and journalism. Earth Pro was not popular because it was the most advanced GIS tool. It was popular because it combined global imagery, historical imagery, 3D terrain, easy navigation, KML workflows, measurement tools and a low learning curve in one free desktop app.

QGIS can replace some of that. It can exceed much of it. But it does not automatically replace the integrated, low-friction investigative experience that made Google Earth Pro useful to non-specialists.

Google Earth offered an imagery-first solution with useful tools built around it. In your first moments as a beginner, you could easily get real satellite imagery of your house or zoom in wherever you want. QGIS — or any other software — does not have that entry point. You cannot just load the app and go.

The better recommendation is to use QGIS when you need proper GIS. Use web tools where they are good enough. Use Google Earth web where it meets the task. But start identifying which Earth Pro workflows are mission-critical before the download cutoff arrives.

Conclusion

Google Earth Pro is not disappearing overnight, and this should not be read as resistance to Google Earth evolving. The web version is improving, and a single modern platform may eventually be easier to maintain, expand and share. But for OSINT researchers, journalists and digital investigators, the concern is not nostalgia. It is whether the workflows that made Google Earth Pro so useful can survive the move: local case files, complex KML/KMZs, high-resolution overlays, historical imagery, measurement, reproducibility and control over sensitive data. Google Earth Pro has helped people verify events, expose harm and make evidence legible. If its desktop era is ending, Google should make sure the next era preserves not just the popular features, but the investigative trust that made the tool matter in the first place.